February 8, 2013 [Yahoo Finance] - San Antonio-based publicly traded partnership NuStar Energy L.P. announced weak fourth quarter profits, hamstrung by higher operating expenses in its storage business.
The owner and operator of crude oil and refined products pipelines and storage facilities reported revenue of $984.8 million was 46.0% below the year-earlier level but comfortably surpassed the Zacks Consensus Estimate of $634.0 million on the back of strong service sales.
Segmental Performance
Storage: Throughput volumes in the Storage segment rose 8.0% year over year to 794,335 barrels per day. However, revenues were essentially flat at approximately $148.5 million on the back of a 4.8% fall in the storage lease revenue (that makes up 81% of the total revenues).
Quarterly operating income reached $33.9 million (down 36.2% year-over-year), pulled down by higher operating expenses.
Transportation: Quarterly throughput volumes in the Transportation segment were up 4.4% year over year to 923,609 barrels per day. The improvement can be attributed to higher crude oil pipelines throughput that benefited from the completion of two growth capital projects in the Eagle Ford shale during 2012.
The increased throughput, together with higher pipeline tariffs pushed the segment operating income up by 11.4% year over year to $47.9 million. Operating revenue increased 12.3% to $95.5 million.
